Again she was silent. Slowly her unresponsive gaze turned from the minister and swept the sea of upturned faces. Never was there a sterner, sadder crowd than the one upon which she looked down; the men lean, sour-visaged, the women already showing a delicacy, born of hardship and the pitiless New England winters. Children hoisted on the shoulders of yeomen were to be seen. She saw the wan, large-eyed face of little Ebenezer Gibbs, as his father held him up to behold the witch who had afflicted him with such grievous illness. Drawn together in a group were the gentry. And all thrilled to a general terror for none knew on whom the accusation might next fall. At the tavern, the loiterers, made reckless by the awful plague, gathered to be merry and pledge a cup to the dying. With these latter mingled foreign sailors, their faces bronzed, wearing gold rings in their ears and gay scarves around their waists. One of these tavern roisterers shouted: “Behold the imp the witch carries in the shape of a black cat!” There came another cry: “Let the cat be strung up also, lest the witch’s spirit pass into it at her death!” Others caught up and repeated the cry. An ominous murmur rose from the crowd, drowning the single voices. The minister strove in vain to make himself heard. To Deliverance the clamour was meaningless sound. But yet closer to her breast she clasped the little kitten. Slowly she turned her head and her gaze travelled over the landscape. Vaguely she felt that she would never see the morrow’s sun, that now she looked her last upon the kind earth. Suddenly her gaze became fixed as she caught the flash of spears and saw mounted soldiers emerge from the forest and come rapidly down the winding road from the opposite hill. Some dim instinct of self-preservation struggled through the stupor which enveloped her. She raised her arm and pointed to the forest. So strange, so silent, seeming guided by a mysterious power, was that gesture, that a tremor as at something supernatural passed through the people. They saw the minister speak excitedly to the hangman, whose jaw dropped in amazement. Soon was distinctly heard the trampling of horses. A moment later four soldiers, riding two abreast, swept up the hill with cries of:— “Way, make way, good people, in the King’s name!” Following these came his Excellency the new Governor, Sir William Phipps. He sat severely erect on his richly caparisoned horse, attended by two more soldiers. Reaching the scaffold he reined in his horse and waited. A yet more astonishing thing than the unlooked-for arrival of the Governor was about to occur.